


Immemorial Year

by PaperFesses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amnesia, Australia, Canon-Typical Violence, Harry Potter - Freeform, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Hyperbolic Time Chamber | The Room of Spirit and Time, Multi, Nightmares, War, hpss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperFesses/pseuds/PaperFesses
Summary: Darius Carter is at first glance an ordinary muggle. At least, until a gang of Death Eaters show up at his door, wands out. So Darius Carter is revealed to be a great wizard, or rather: Darius Carter was actually the wizard Harry Potter all along. You still with me? Okay then, because Darius Carter has amnesia, and since he has amnesia then technically the wizard called Harry Potter never existed. Darius doesn't know of the magical world or the great war that awaits him, or even the crowds of people he left behind. Did he go willingly, or was he forced? Without his memories, that is the big question.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kuja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuja/gifts).



> So, after posting few chapter in French on fanfiction.net, I have decided to give it a try in English. I hope y'all like this whole mess, can wait to read what you guys thought about.
> 
> Disclaimer : I own nothing but my own characters you'll meet soon enough.
> 
> A/N : shout out to Kuja (AO3) who was patient enough to correct this whole thing, without her, know that you would have read some weird stuff about people shitting in some cowboy boots. Thanks for everything.

The skies they were ashen and sober;  
The leaves they were crisped and sere—  
The leaves they were withering and sere;  
It was night in the lonesome October  
Of my most immemorial year:

**— Ulalume, Edgar Allan Poe.**

**— 2004, Outback, The O'Hara, Australia.**

The man uttered a muffled groan, crushing his face further into a pillow already covered with sweat. It would no doubt be given as a tribute to the next washing machine cycle. The owner of the house might have been a great friend of his, but her love of cleanliness was even stronger than the affection she bore to the young O'Hara workers. She always said a clean home was the first step towards a clean soul; whatever that meant.

Abandoned to Morpheus's arms, the sleeping man was unable to linger on thoughts of his boss' wife; he was far too preoccupied by a bright green light that made him squint in pain.

He wanted to scream and ask for help. Ask: 'What's going on? Is there someone there? Where am I?' but even if he managed to open his mouth when he tried to speak, no sound was ever heard. Then, he had the feeling of choking, of drowning; somewhere in the jumbled ruins of his surroundings, he heard the echoing laughter of another person. It wasn't a joyful sound - nothing to show that the person was having fun. It was like a knife on china, or nails on a chalkboard. An unpleasant sound that made him shudder.

He wanted to hide, to flee into a mouse hole in the walls and never come out; to never have to see the fire spread, again and again. The bodies fell by the dozens, blood watered the earth and coloured the grass that characteristic carmine red.

"Leave me." He breathed, without the slightest sound escaping from his lips. "Leave me, please. Make it stop. Make it stop."

His fingers wrapped around a piece of wood, but the feeling of security he expected never came. Instead, his bowels froze as if steeped in icy water. He inhaled.

He exhaled.

A human shape cloaked in shadow formed suddenly before him as if it were a ghost and the dreamer jumped, brandishing his improvised wooden weapon in fear. His mouth was open and he tried to shout something, only words once again failed him and he panicked, a silent sob shaking his shoulders.

"..ar .. tter." The figure said, kneeling in front of him.

Though he could focus on the shadow, he was unable to see its face. Or rather, looking closely, it was so covered with dried mud and blood that it was unrecognizable. The distorted features frowned and the shadow shook him roughly, hard hands on his shoulders.

"...hear ...? ...tter! ...otter! ...ot the moment fo..."

A flash of light pierced the figure's body, and it collapsed heavily against him like a puppet with cut strings. The weight against his chest made him panic, even more when he realized that no matter how much he struggled, the body would not move again.

Dead. Whispered a voice in the back of his head. More dead. Countless dead, and yet even more dead because of you. Always for you.

He screamed, but there was no sound.

He cried, but nobody cared.

He called for help, but no one heard him.

He…

"...Hey, you hear me? Carter, wake up!"

The man forced himself to open his eyes, his face bloodless and his breathing ragged. At his bedside, a boy between fourteen and sixteen looked him with a concerned frown before handing him a glass of fresh water, which was greeted with a watery smile.

"Sorry." Whispered Carter, bringing the water to his lips. "Did I wake you?"

"I wish! Mum got me up at dawn; it's been a while."

The teenager had blond hair bleached by his time in the sun, a scattering of freckles on a small upturned nose and large blue-gray eyes. He smiled, showing a row of white teeth almost perfectly aligned except for a single canine crossed over its neighbour.

"You dreamed again? One of those ones you don't want to talk about, right ?"

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his time-worn blue overalls, knowing that the man his mother had been sheltering for years now was hardly an open book. In fact, he was so guarded that the kid suspected him of outright lying about certain aspects of his life. He'd mentioned it to his parents many times, but they just ordered him to leave their poor guest/employee alone.

The man named Carter shrugged.

"Something like that." He replied evasively.

It could just be a nightmare. Carter wasn't convinced that revealing he regularly dreamed of war, death and weird flashes of light was a wise decision. He loved his freedom and wasn't eager to end his days in a mental institution. Or to put it another way, he didn't want to reveal these details to a teenage boy infamous for his love of gossip. Seth O'Hara was a good boy, but a boy who often talked too much.

"Yeah, I see." The boy pouted as he picked up his drink.

He turned to leave without asking for the rest, although he paused on the threshold, as he remembered why he had come in the first place:

"Before I forget, dad said that Mrs Lowe is on her way; her ugly kid wrote off his bike again. I suppose you don't need the details."

"Again? I thought his old man was supposed to keep an eye on him." Grumbled Carter as he finally decided to get out of bed.

Seth nearly fell when his shoulder made contact with the doorframe, trying to leave the room without looking. What could he say? It was always difficult to walk and pay attention at the same time. Carter, of course, never missed an opportunity to tease the young man. He said things like "It's adorable!" and "Are you blushing, Mr O'Hara?" and again: "Get out of here before your boyfriend comes to give me shit. Children get jealous; you know what I mean."

Of course, he had to respond with a particularly obscene gesture (which made Carter die laughing), the usual insults ("Jealous of what? You're an old man anyway, nobody likes them old!") and a door that slammed a little too loudly. No doubt if he had been insulting another person, his bosses (and parents) would soon be coming to make their feelings known; only it was only Darius Carter, and Darius Carter was a good man. He was gentle and a little shy at first, honest and playful. He liked to tease his peers, and God knows the idea of looking at a younger kid as anything other than as a brother, a cousin or a simple friend, would never have crossed his mind. Seth was exactly that: a little brother that he liked to tease. Because, well, it was his job, after all. They had no blood ties and had only known each other for a few years, but God knew - God knew that Darius would have given everything to keep fueling the rumours, laughing, playing and enjoying life.

**####**

Distractedly, the man who had been picked up by the O'Hara's nearly eight years before led his sleepy body into the adjoining bathroom. He didn't bother to take a look at the reflection that turned its back on the big mirror: he knew it by heart. He knew that lingering on it, he would see only an average frame carved tough like an oak. Although he was no longer as thin as when he was found, he was nothing like his giant colleagues: all muscle. He, though fit, usually hid his strength under the long sleeves that he wore at all times, even when the heat threatened to incinerate him on the spot. His shoulders were wide and his arms strong enough to lift a bike laid out on the ground without any help. His skin had eventually lost that its shade of alabaster - that pallid, cadaverous complexion - after months spent riding in the red expanse of the Australian desert, and adulthood had given him a dark trail of hair from his chest down to the line below his navel, and more. Even his face had finally agreed to let go of its puppy fat. He thanked the stars every night for giving him a square jaw and a beard, because with this he resembled his boss, guardian, and savior - just as they both had black hair.

His introspection would probably have dragged out a little longer if the water from the shower had not suddenly cooled. Swearing at the boiler, which was apparently not in a good enough mood this morning, Darius cut his routine short, shut off the water supply, and exited the shower stall. With mechanical gestures he wiped the fog from the wide mirror and exhaled deeply when he met his own green eyes, so similar to the flashes of color in the dreams that haunted his waking mind. With a rueful smile, Darius Carter knew it was going to be a long day.

**####**

"Mrs. Lowe," He said soon after, his deep voice dangerously soft. "I'm curious to know what brings you to me again."

With a flannel shirt wrapped snugly around her waist, skinny jeans tucked into shiny leather boots and thick blond hair cascading over a generous bosom, all topped with an akubra (Australian cowboy hat): Mrs Lowe did not pretend to look embarrassed or at best even contrite.

"You know how it is with children." She said, rolling her eyes. "They destroy everything they touch."

Okay. Darius could perhaps concede that point. What he couldn't agree with was this mother putting her ugly offspring's life in danger by allowing him to regularly ride a bike he was far too small to handle. Sighing, he gestured to two guys in the garage to bring the victim of a family's stupidity inside so he could take a closer look at it.

"When will there will be nothing left for him to destroy?" He groaned, without addressing anyone in particular.

The two men dragging the wreck of the 1949 Triumph Tiger behind them stifled their laughter; but there was no doubt that when good old Darius was no longer able to repair the bike, the father of the awful kid would simply find him a new and more dangerous toy. It broke their hearts to see it in pieces every time.

"So?" Said Mrs. Lowe, impatient. "Is it repairable?"

Darius sighed heavily, his torso bent double over the machine. He ran a hand over his shaved head (A gift from Seth, who had assured him that this style looked awesome, and no, keeping it long on top isn't weird - you're just really old, Carter!) before turning to his client.

"Yeah, but it's going to cost you an arm and a leg, as usual; it'd be easier to buy a new one, to be honest."

He spared a thought for the neighbouring bike shops who must surely make a fortune from these people.

**####**

At six o'clock sharp, Darius left Alice (The city was actually named Alice Springs, but only visitors called it that) and set off in the direction of the O'Hara house in the outback. This was a soothing routine: getting up, going to work, taking a lunch break around noon then back to work, and going home to dinner with the people he had come to consider as his family after all these years.

This life - this routine - required years of effort. Darius could easily remember the condition in which he had been discovered with terrible injuries many years earlier. Nobody knew how he had come to be in the middle of the desert. Just sixteen or seventeen years old, and he had almost died due to blood loss and a catalogue of wounds enough to make even the most battle-hardened soldiers pale. On top of that, he'd been unable to remember his own name, age and date of birth; or indeed any details at all about his life before. Even his native language or accent gave them no clues, since for a year after being found he had been unable to speak at all. The doctors had been blunt about it - it was abnormal, but trauma always left its mark - whether physical or psychological.

When he had finally spoken - a year to the day after being found - he was already used to the voices of those surrounding him, and enforced mimicry quickly allowed him to pass for a local.

In other words, his voice couldn't help the authorities or anyone else.

The only remnant of his old life found with him was a letter written on strange, thick paper - parchment, they had been told - whose ink had, unfortunately, been too smudged to be readable. Only the letters 'A, R, I' and 'T, E, R' had been readable at the top of the page, and after consulting the registry of first names in the area, they all agreed that Darius Carter was what was probably as close to the secret name of the young amnesiac as they were going to get. (and with more ties to the area than they first thought, since it turned out that Darius was actually the name of Charles O'Hara's father.). Since he hadn't had any opinions either way and it was as good a name as any other, Mrs. and Mr. O'Hara with his agreement had baptised him and registered his new identity, becoming his legal guardians at the same time.

This story had swept the country like wildfire, and along with it came the headlines: Amnesiac Boy Found! The Child-who-forgot! The Scarred Boy - because, well, he had one scar in particular that no one could ignore since it was on his forehead, and formed the strange shape of a lightning strike.

Fortunately after the first year, his celebrity status had faded. Today, Darius Carter was a man like any other. He had a job, a family, friends, girlfriends - not all at once, let it be said - and Darius Carter was a happy man - barring the small matter of the missing three-quarters of his life beforehand, of course - but he was happy.

So much for the longing he always felt.

So much for the hollow space in his chest.

So much for the nightmares.

So much for the war that he knew was only in his dreams - a war that he tried to convince himself was just a dream. A nightmare.

Fingers clenching around the steering wheel, Darius emptied his mind, as he forced himself to do each time his thoughts turned to ugly things. He stared at the red sand road, letting mind drift to the stew that his mum was preparing instead.

He pressed harder on the accelerator, oblivious to the shadow hovering above him.


	2. A wolf amongst the sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, Kuja is the one who did all the correction and the only reason why the story makes sense. Many thanks !  
> I hope you'll will enjoy this chapter, I cannot wait to read your comments !

"Do I really need that?"

"Are you seriously asking what I think you're asking?"

Darius opened his mouth - most likely to give the long speech he had prepared - but he closed it very quickly when the older woman met his gaze. 

What did you expect? Occasionally his self-preservation instincts _did_ manage to win out over his pride.

Or maybe it was because _nobody_ had ever managed to say ‘no’ to this woman?

"You'll see. It'll change your life, boy."

"It's going to ruin my life, more like." He grumbled through his beard.

The slap the woman gave him across the back of the head made him turtle his neck into his shoulders. The man next to him burst into a laugh.

"Come on then." He said, still laughing. He wrapped one of his arms around Darius's shoulders. "I heard your guys complaining at the garage, saying you use antiquity to diagnose problems..."

"Antiquity?! _They_ are the antiques!"

They hid their smiles at the touched nerve.

"Of course, darling." Ma said, "Whatever you say."

Darius raised an eyebrow, hope filtering into his eyes.

"Really?"

The clap on his shoulder almost _\- almost -_ reassured him that he could continue to dream. Charles O'Hara would surely never risk his own skin by contradicting his charming wife. More foolish men than him had tried.

Only God knows what had happened to those guys.

"Don't hold your breath, kid," Charles said, apologetic.

_Nobody_ could say ‘no’ to Ma.

####

"Fucking technology." Darius moaned later, as the older couple finally left his studio.

He loved life way too much to even dare try swearing in front of the old woman. Experience taught him she was deadly with a rolling pin (or a number 12 spanner, if necessary!). He cursed them as much as he loved them. 

Wasn't that crazy?

Darius mistreated his keyboard like a woodpecker would, his tree. Behind him, the guys were already laughing at him, knowing too well his reputation with all members of the ‘Electronics’ family. You just had to _think_ of giving him a smartphone or something similar for the device to shut down.

The computer in question did not take long: it suddenly went dark, taking its meagre contents to the abyss Darius was sure lurked at the bottom of the internet.

_"Fucking technology!"_ Darius repeated with a sigh.

He gestured one of _the guys_ to get his ass over here, grumpy now.

"Something's wrong?" Asked the man, whose work shirt proudly stated _I'm Angus._

He was roughly forty years old, tanned, fair-haired and often smiling, with arms wider than Darius' whole body. One of the bears he worked with, but a friend and colleague too.

_"Everything's_ wrong!"

"Of course it is, boss." Angus smiled in his calm way. "It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you pulled this out?"

He held up a thick power cable draped across his palm. A cable that brought a frown to Darius’ face. How on earth could the thing have disconnected itself? It wasn’t like he had trouble working the computer minutes earlier. He raised his arms to the ceiling, as if imploring an all-powerful deity:

"I'm so done with this - take over!"

He grabbed his hat hanging from the coat rack behind the office door, screwed it on his head and whirled around.

"I'm taking a break." He said to the rest of the team.

A Native American guy in the corner shook his head and sighed loudly, a mocking grin blooming on his lips. He was whistled at by a hulking redheaded man leaning over the mezzanine whose beard was in stiff competition with that of the average Viking.

"Hey Tanner, twelve minutes!’ He grinned down at his colleague.

"Fine, you Irish bastard!" Retorted the man named Tanner without malice.

He produced his wallet and from it, a twenty dollar note which he waved under the nose of the approaching Viking whose shirt announced _I'm Maddox_ in a cheerful blue.

Whatever Maddox and Tanner said next was lost in a merry hubbub that quickly became indistinct to Darius' ears. Yet the dark expression on his face had already given way to something more tender and relaxed. Leaning against the back wall of the garage, he listened to his colleagues - bitching about unjust bets and Vikings who could not be right because _Shit, they're bloody barbarians, not damn psychic! What's the deal, Madds seriously? You pay him? Confess! It's a conspiracy! -_ while lighting himself a cigarette. 

The opaque white smoke momentarily hid the garage from sight when he exhaled after a long drag.

Life was beautiful. He had three good friends by his side - even if three _idiots_ would often be more accurate, depending on the day - a job he loved, and never mind if the damn computers didn’t like him. He didn’t need them to run his business, really.

And no, Darius wasn’t _sulking_ because of an inanimate object. He wasn’t that kind of man.

####

The Shadow frowned, uncaring of the deep wrinkles in the expression that would without a doubt end up stuck to her face if she continued to express her discontent through such blatant mimicry. She had bigger fish to fry, as the Muggles would say. And speaking of Muggles, the Shadow couldn’t understand them at all. She didn’t understand why the object of her attentions spent his days leaning over big metal boxes while muttering all sorts of colourful words, or why he also spoke so much with the three morons who - from what she could understand - worked for him in a lesser capacity.

That bothered her, of course. Starting with the fact that it was boring manual work, and then that Potty-Wee-Potter was supposed to be a damn wizard, and therefore by extension waving his magic wand around pretty much all the time.

It was common knowledge - the wizards were lazy.

Dishes to do? _PAF!_ Wand sparks and it’s done. A meal to prepare? Wand: _BOOM!_ Housework? Whether magic or house elf; the wizards had plenty of choices as long as they didn’t have to get their own hands dirty.

So even if the Shadow could agree that the Chosen One was passionate about… whatever these filthy, colorful and metallic things were - she did not understand why he wasn’t simply waving his wand at them to repair them faster. It would save a considerable amount of time, get him more money (since it was a business, apparently) and the Shadow still had plenty of other reasons why Harry should have just waved his damn magic wand already. He was a wizard - _**the**_ wizard - so why was he using boring and slow Muggle ways?

The Shadow crossed her arms over her chest. She really should have noticed these strange things earlier, especially since the most famous wizard in England was having such a good time with Muggles in the middle of nowhere while the magical world was - 

A man with dark skin and long black hair almost bumped into her as she stood deep in thought, ignoring him.

"Hey!" He shouted. "I could eat a horse! Who’ll be good enough to get me something to eat?"

A murmur ran through the shop and the Shadow discreetly recast her Disillusionment Charm, squatting behind the tarnished remains of an old car not far from the open garage doors.

"Your mother would be happy to help, Yakari!" Retorted another man, elbowing in the ribs of the first man.

The man raised a hand against his chest in mock-horror, as theatrical as he could manage. The Shadow privately thought that he looked ridiculous, his face twisted and distorted with fake pain.

"I thought you were my friend, but it turns out you're just an old racist? _Dariuuuuuuussss,_ petition to remove this caveman at once!"

"Petition for you to shut the fuck up!" Interrupted a tall blond man, hands on his hips in frustration.

"But I'm _starving!"_ Moaned the theatrical man.

" _So_ starving." Repeated the caveman, drawing out the vowels into a whine.

"God help me, I'm surrounded by a bunch of kids." The Chosen One said as he rolled out of the office on a desk chair. "Would you mind keeping it down? Some of us are trying to work here."

The Shadow pretended throw up in the face of so much immaturity, but she had made up her mind.

It was time she intervened.

####

Darius glared at the satisfied and smiling trio in front of him. He wondered for the thousandth time what he had done to deserve working in a backwater hole like this with these idiots. How could he have made friends with such evil and twisted guys? Why did he love them so much, while clearly none of them ever came close to deserving his affections?

"I hate you all." He said to them, his middle finger lifted and an angry pout on his lips.

The three men rolled their eyes in a perfectly synchronous movement.

"You're such a big liar, Carter. You love us and you know it."

"You love us more than _apple pie_."

"Your love is so strong, that you’re going to get us our food today."

Angus, Tanner and Maddox, more proud than a pack of wolves, ruffled the hair of their young boss. If a customer had been present, there was no doubt that questions would be asked about abuse of authority; in the sense that the older ones were constantly teasing the youngest. An outsider would be shocked to hear the curse words flying through the air all day in the garage. They would probably recommend a therapist or something similar, thinking that there was no way for these men to be totally sane in that environment. Only, for the quartet, all this signalled a perfect normality. It was their routine - their dynamics; the way they showed their affection.

"I hate you." Darius repeated, turning on his heels.

Mocking laughter greeted his departure and Darius vowed never again to try and decide who would go for lunch with rock, paper, scissors.

####

"I can see someone isn't going to starve today." A voice said as Darius struggled to get the food in its plastic bags out of the supermarket doors.

A woman had slipped behind him without him even realizing. It was unusual for people to surprise him like that, even if he was busy ending the life of a useless plastic bag. He bit his tongue on a curse for the sake of the poor woman, who didn’t deserve his surprised response. Taking his frustrations out on other people wasn’t his style.

"Excuse me?"

"Sandwiches, I mean. Let's see: tuna, roast turkey, cheese, ham _and_ veggie? Well, that’s interesting. Didn't know a man could have such diverse tastes."

Abandoning his fight with the stupid bags, Darius finally straightened. He took in the woman with a quick glance: tall, pale, younger than he was - with brown hair and a mischievous glint in her brown eyes.

"So what?"

Darius blinked, dragging himself back out of his thoughts.

"So what?" He repeated a little stupidly, which triggered an amused laugh from the woman.

He decided her laugh was adorable, without being able to really explain why.

"Do you intend to eat all of those in one sitting, or may I have one?"

"That’s a funny way to ask for a date."

"A date? I wasn’t asking you for a date. As it happens I'm just hungry and I feel it’s my duty to help everyone get rid of excess food to avoid waste. Especially when someone is about to break their vegetarian diet.” She said, as she pointedly looked at the bags Darius still held in his arms.

At the very least, this lady had a sense of humour. Darius had to admit that besides being attractive - she was fun, as he noted by the way she grinned at him when he met her eyes.

"Don't want to crush those dreams of yours, but unfortunately these sandwiches are not all for me. Well... I say ‘unfortunately’ but I'm kind of happy that no one has forced me to eat... that, yet."

He jerked his head to point with his chin at the sandwich on the top of the pile. The veggie one. Did he look like a damn rabbit? The stranger laughed when a sudden movement sent the famous vegetarian meal to the ground, but stopped its fall in mid-air with her own hands before it connected.

"Nice reflexes." Said Darius with an admiring whistle.

She smiled, trying to be modest for a moment.

"Let's just say I used to practice sports in my youth that required a lot of skill and speed."

She replaced the rescued sandwich on top of the pile. Further down the street, a sturdy fellow - redder than an army of carrots - shouted to them, asking ‘ _For God’s sake, did you go to China for the sandwiches? Bring your ass back here or the men will eventually eat each other and ... PUT THAT DOWN YOU MORON, IT’S NO …’_ Snatches of cacophony blurred together inside the garage.

It wasn’t really the kind of conversation that made women want to stick around. They often had cavemen manners, whether joking or not. And yet...

"Well," The woman laughed. “that sounds like fun. I hope your employees won’t really devour each other."

Darius choked back a laugh.

"I wish." He murmured, more to himself than anything else.

Maybe he also glared a little at the tall red nerd bitching with his friend across the street.

"Astoria." The woman said suddenly, stretching out a perfectly manicured hand towards him.

"Sorry, what?"

"Greengrass. Astoria Greengrass. Do you want to go out for a drink on Wednesday?"

Darius really didn’t know what to say to that.


End file.
